At the end of last May, the Martin Institute and Dallas Willard Research Center’s 3rd annual Christian Formation Workshop took place at Westmont College. The workshop gathered biblical, theological, philosophical, and psychological evidence to refine Christian understandings of the role of spiritual practices in virtue formation, and sought to consider the practical application of such knowledge to Christian life and ministry. The goal of these workshops is to help further practical understanding of the need and nature of spiritual formation in Christ.
Two weeks ago, we released the opening comments by Steve Porter (Martin Institute) and closing comments by Rebecca DeYoung (Calvin). This week, we have videos from part one of the workshop, titled “Biblical Understandings of Spiritual Practice and Virtue Formation.” The first session features Jonathan Pennington (Southern Seminary), Jeannine Brown (Bethel Seminary), and Holly Beers (Westmont). The second session features Joshua Jipp (Notre Dame), Nijay Gupta (Northern Seminary), and Lisa Igram (Biola University).
For context, each presenter prepared a pre-written paper that was distributed and read by all workshop participants ahead of time. The first part of the videos are 10-minute summaries of those papers, which are followed by 20-minute responses from their respective commentators. At the workshop, the two talks from each session were followed by over 40 minutes of small and large group discussion. While we did not record the discussion period, we encourage you to find a way to process your own thoughts in response to what you hear. More videos to come in the weeks ahead!
Steve Porter, on behalf of the Editorial Team